Pre-training sets low-rank geometry, RL fine-tunes shape

yunta_tsai · x · 2026-08-21

yuntatsai argues that pre-training establishes the correct low-rank geometry, while RL fine-tuning adjusts the shape. Better pre-training geometry requires less fine-tuning. Fine-tuning cannot fix low-rank mistakes because the optimizer cannot determine the correct shape if the observations have significant gaps.

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